By East Africa's Independent Media Review
Thursday, 13 May 2010
President Paul Kagame on May 11 came out strongly against a damning article by The New York Times in which the paper alleged that up to 900 youths are imprisoned on an island on Lake Kivu in government efforts to suppress dissent.
Kagame described the article as “pathetic”, accusing The Times author of the article Mr. Jeffrey Gentlemen as a “person fond of negatively writing about Rwanda”.
According to Kagame, the journalist wrote the story to give the impression that he had personally undertaken the “daring operation to discover” the Iwawa Island, when in actual sense he had been invited by the line minister.
Mr. Kagame accused The Times of hiding behind “professionalism” to consistently “tarnish the image” of the country. “This is how manipulative some people can be,” Mr. Kagame told a press conference.
Indicative of the seriousness of The New York Times allegations, the question was asked in Kinyarwanda but President Kagame refused to answer in the same language, saying he wanted to respond to an article published in English.
Earlier, he had dismissed the reporter who raised the issue as confused - telling the reporter, Nelson Gatsimbazi, of “misreading or misinterpreting the constitution”.
Gatsimbazi had told the President that the manner in which people were taken to Iwawa Island contravened the constitution, adding that the victims are “kidnapped.”
The President said “most or the main bulk” of those youths on the Island were brought from detention centers.
Gesturing irritably, President Kagame directed that one of the ministers present at the press conference respond to the issue. He clearly did not want to continue speaking about The New York Times allegations.
Internal Security Minister Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana was on hand to respond. He said government had the responsibility to look after its people.
According to him, the law gives the authorities the power to hold people on such a program for as long as seven years. Sheikh Harelimana said those youths were not being imprisoned as reported, instead the state was taking care of them.
In the article titled ‘Rwanda Pursues Dissenters and the Homeless’ published on May 1, The Times reported that government had forced up to 900 “beggars, homeless people and suspected petty thieves, including dozens of children” to the island because they undermined the image of the country.
The paper claimed that among them were children. It cited Gasigwa, 14, who whispered “Please call my father,” adding, “He has no idea where I am.”
“We call it the island of no return,” said Esperance Uwizeyimana, a supposed homeless mother of four.
However, the government said none of the vocational training programs had started by mid-March. Protais Mitali, the Youth Minister, insisted there were no street children there, just adults.
The minister said in a letter to the media that the Rehabilitation and Vocational Skills Development Center at Iwawa Island was established to equip young Rwandans living on the street with skills to make them employable.
“There is nothing sinister or repressive about the center; institutions of this kind can be found in many countries around the world. The center caters to young men over 18; younger street children are housed and trained at a separate center east of Kigali, run by the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion,” the letter said.
“None of the young people had to go through the justice system simply because they are not criminals and the center in Iwawa is not a prison. In addition, all of them are carefully screened twice, in Kigali and again once they arrive on the island.”
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